Evers free man after 9 years in jail for killing infant daughter

ALEX BOERNER/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS Christopher Evers, 32, walks west on 40th Street Friday afternoon after being released from the Indian River County Jail, which can be seen over his right shoulder. He struck a plea deal earlier in the morning at the Indian River County Courthouse by pleading no contest to charges of manslaughter in the shaken-baby death of his daughter nearly eight years ago. He was sentenced to the 3,192 days he had been awaiting trial.

VERO BEACH ? After being jailed for almost eight years awaiting trial on charges of killing his infant daughter in 2002, Christopher Evers left the county jail a free man at 2 p.m. Friday.

He walked alone, passing barbed-wire fences and walls that long surrounded him.

"I can't believe it is over," said the 32-year-old father at the end one of longest pretrial detentions in the county's history, according to judicial officials.

He didn't call relatives. He wanted to surprise them. But one of them picked him up in a car a quarter mile from the jail.

Four hours earlier his court saga ended when he finally pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the shaken-baby death of his daughter, Katherine, in 2002.

Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn judged him guilty and sentenced Evers to the jail time he has served ? 3,192 days either in the Indian River County Jail or in state mental care, all while not being convicted. In jail, he was held without bail.

Vaughn dropped a charge of aggravated child abuse in the death of Evers' 4-month-old baby at their home in the 200 block of 20th Avenue. He lived with this girlfriend at the time.

Evers was accused of violently shaking his daughter, striking her head against a blunt object, causing skull fractures, according to the initial law enforcement reports on his arrest in 2003.

In court on Friday, Evers only said, "Yes sir," and put his head down when Vaughn asked if he willingly made the plea.

Then Evers ? still in shackles and a red prison outfit ? was taken back to the jail for processing for his release. "He still maintains his innocence," said Evers private attorney, Andy Metcalf.

Evers contends his daughter had seizures that caused a heart attack and that mishandling by medical officials led to her death in an Orlando hospital.

Yet "he honestly felt he would never get to trial ? that someone would keep stepping up to stop it," Metcalf said.

"It was a tragic situation," said his uncle, Max Evers of Tallahassee.

Court officials said the case languished for years mainly because of questions of Evers' mental competency: twice he was judged incompetent to stand trial and was sent to state mental care facilities, including the Treasure Coast Forensic Treatment Center in Indiantown in Martin County.

Two months before his daughter's death, he was in a traffic accident on State Road 60 that caused nerve and brain damage, according to court records.

He was a front-seat passenger in a U-Haul truck that collided with a tractor-trailer that jackknifed in front of them. He hit his head and lost consciousness.

During the years after his arrest, Evers has written letters to judges contending he was innocent and the charges were all part of a cover-up.

In 2008 a state-appointed mental evaluator testified in court that Evers "has almost a delusional disorder" from his brain injury and he considers any challenge a conspiracy, court records show.

In mid-2011, the mental care facility in Indiantown said he no longer qualified for care there and sent him back to Indian River County ? to face another court-ordered mental competency evaluation.

The most recent evaluation concluded he was competent, said Metcalf, who became Evers' attorney in late 2011.

Metcalf prevailed on Evers to "take a fresh look, to look at what he was missing:" not being with his family and two sons, who are now 14 and 12 years old, Metcalf said.

He could have continued to fight the charges and go to trial. If convicted of murder, he could have been sentenced to life in prison.

"The decision to enter this plea has been one Mr. Evers has toiled over, but he decided to put his family first," Metcalf said. He "reluctantly accepts the state's offer to enter a plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter."

Assistant State Attorney Nikki Robinson said she agreed with how the case ended. If the case has gone to trial, she said there would have continued to be questions of Evers' mental competency.

After leaving the jail, Evers will live with his mother, whom he said lives in Vero Beach.

"It is good to get him home," Max Evers said. "There, he will get to adjust to life outside jail" while getting mental counseling.

His care will be helped with money from the settlement of a lawsuit against the insurer of the semi-truck in the 2001 crash. Evers gets the money to support himself. The details of the settlement haven't been released.

A guardianship by a relative has been set up to oversee his care.

About Elliott Jones

Elliott Jones is a multimedia journalist for Treasure Coast Newspapers and TCPalm.com.